Mariners waste another good outing by Felix lose 5-1

FelixHernandez pitched well enough to win, but his team didn’t have the killer instinct today and allowed the LAAngels to hang around and eventually win 5-1 in the 10th on a grand slam by KendryMorales. Jered Weaver managed to keep the Mariners off-balance through the first 7 frames allowing only one run on an odd throwing error in the 4th. Matt Tuiasosopo who for some reason got the start today at first, over slid third base in the same inning to kill that rally. The Mariners also had runners on second and third with 1-out in the first but neither Bradley nor Lopez could come-up with either a sacrifice fly or a hit to take advantage of that situation.

This was a frustrating game to watch as the Mariners had chances to score but could not provide any offense to support Felix Hernandez in order to pick-up a game in the standings with the Texas Rangers losing today. The Angels pitching was good, but our guys looked timid at the plate. All three of the AAA guys Saunders,Wilson, and Tuiasosopo went 0-4 and seemed out of their league so to speak today at the plate. Of course the veterans did not fare much better with the exception of Jose Lopez who picked up 2 hits on the day.

Hernandez got progressively stronger as the game went on till he was pulled for Brandon League in the top of the 9th. The skipper Wakamatsu seems to like to stay with League once he puts him in and doesn’t seem to be able to sense when League is struggling, thus allowing him to give-up his second grand-slam in relief on the year.Of course the lack of offense today put our pitchers in this situation to begin with as the Angels are not the same kind of team as in the past and are much more vulnerable this year.

With a win tomorrow the Mariners could still take this series and come back home still in the race thanks to the overall weakness in the AL West. Ian Snell gets the start tomorrow and it is time for Snell to earn his spot in this rotation lest the call goes down to Tacoma to bring up Luke French. French is shining thus far in AAA and deserves a chance with the big club. Eliezer Alfonso the catcher has been called up and may get a look in this series to see if he can cut the mustard.

I hope everyone is enjoying the Memorial day weekend and want to ask you all to take a minute to remember the veterans both currently and in the past who have served this nation in all the branches of the service, including the often forgotten civilian MerchantMariners who transport the nations vital cargo in times of conflict. http://www.usmm.org/casualty.html